The warning follows a shock call by the governing council of France’s prestigious Paris VI university at Jussieu in the French capital to suspend EU funding for academic cooperation between the Union and Israel.

Insiders say hardliners on the governing council wanted to go even further and ban Israeli students and academics from studying at Paris VI.

The decision was finally overturned on Tuesday (7 January), by the governors of neighbouring Paris VII but student leaders say the affair must not be allowed to set any sort of dangerous precedent.

“We must be very careful not to mix things up on these kinds of issues,” Marie-Amélie Keller, a spokeswoman for France’s biggest student organisation the Union Nationale des Etudiants de France Indépendante et Democratique (UNEF) said.

“We can condemn Ariel Sharon’s policies without calling for a boycott of universities,” she continued, adding that Israel’s academic community includes some of Sharon’s strongest domestic critics.

Keller’s sentiments were echoed by Alex Bols, head of the Brussels-based National Unions of Students in Europe (ESIB), an umbrella group that brings together 50 student unions from 37 European countries.

“Targeting academic exchanges would just be counterproductive. We believe that interaction between universities is one of the best ways of improving understanding between cultures,” he added.

The European Commission also made it clear this week that it does not believe freezing aid for academic cooperation between Israel and the EU would have any sort of positive effect on the Middle East peace process.

“Supporting scientific and academic cooperation is a way of keeping alive dialogue both between the EU and Israel and between Israel and the Arab states,” Fabio Fabbi, spokesman for EU Research Commissioner Philippe Busquin told European Voice.

Fabbi added that Israel will be able to benefit from funding under the EU’s sixth framework programme for research later this year and that it already takes part in a large number of academic exchange schemes with the Union.

For their part, the French authorities quickly distanced themselves from Paris VI when the university made its original statement on academic exchanges in December 2002.

The French foreign ministry pointed out that the university was an independent body and that the ruling “in no way whatsoever” reflected the views of the French government. The education ministry was similarly critical, calling the decision “inopportune” while Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoë branded the call “both a shocking act and a tragic error”.

Jewish groups have expressed increasing concern in recent months that the line between criticism of the Israeli government and anti-Semitism is becoming increasingly blurred in the EU.

They say the situation is particularly bad in France, which has the Union’s biggest Jewish community.

Last Monday week (30 December) a Paris Rabbi was stabbed and slightly injured outside his synagogue and his car was set alight.

In 2002 a spate of anti-Semitic attacks in France were believed to have been carried out in retaliation for Israeli army operations in the Palestinian territories.